Nathan Seidle failed to live up to his parent’s fears of a life defined by delinquency. Yes, he did drop out of college to work at the stadium during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. But a year later he founded the geek commerce site SparkFun, which has grown to become what FastCompany describes as a $32M 150-person “unsexy” RadioShack. Which begs the question, was RadioShack ever sexy? A guru to the maker movement who is redefining the open-source landscape, Nathan has created a virtual treasure chest for techy artists, engineers, prototypers, and hobbyists who want to embrace creativity while essentially flying a virtual jolly roger. Sporting a motley geek attitude, empowering world view, hacker mindset, and unabashed embrace of failure as the true birthplace of success, he has become a leader to a community that is increasingly inclusive, wide, and weird. We invite you to spend an hour with us looking at things through his unusual lens to see a world in which everyone is an artist, creator, and technologist.
Speaker:
Nathan Seidle is the founder of SparkFun Electronics in Boulder, Colorado. Nathan founded SparkFun in 2003 while an undergraduate student studying electrical engineering. He opened SparkFun to fulfill his vision of a company that had clear product photos with multiple views, linked to the datasheet, and had tutorials on every product they sold. In the 14 years since, the company has grown to over 130 employees and is one of the leaders of Open Source technology. In addition to products, SparkFun provides tools, hardware, and educational resources for artists, engineers, prototypers, and hobbyists that want to explore electronic gadgetry.
